Oakland checking records of city workers on disability

Tough scrutiny after ex-officer took job with FBI

Updated 4:14 pm, Saturday, May 31, 2014

Oakland is reviewing seven years worth of police disability retirements after learning that a former police officer who left because of an injury in 2004 was working as an FBI agent in Boston.

City officials will spend the next several weeks comparing the list of police officers who have taken medical retirement with requests for background checks to find any former police officer who may have claimed disability but ended up working in law enforcement elsewhere, said Karen Boyd, a city spokeswoman.

"It will be revealing to go back seven years," Boyd said, adding that the city also will look at firefighters and other city workers out on disability pensions.

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The investigation was spurred by last month's revelation that Aaron McFarlane, 41, a former Oakland police officer who was injured and retired on disability in 2004, was working for the FBI as a special agent. McFarlane was identified as the federal officer who shot and killed a key figure last year in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation.

McFarlane, who joined the Oakland police force in 2000, is collecting $52,488 a year in disability pay from the California Public Employees' Retirement System. The benefit is awarded when a worker is unable to perform the usual duties of his or her current position "due to an illness or injury that is expected to be permanent or of an undetermined duration," according to CalPERS.

Officers on disability retirement are banned from doing similar work for any other government agency in California. Disability retirees, however, are not barred from working for private companies, the federal government or agencies outside the state, even as law enforcement officers.

Oakland continues to investigate McFarlane's case and has not ruled out criminal charges, Boyd said. The investigation has expanded to look at all the police officers who retired on disability in the past seven years.

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"I am absolutely supportive of what they are doing," said Barry Donelan, head of the Oakland Police Officers' Association. "This system is there as a safety net for employees who are injured or disabled in the line of duty serving the people of Oakland."

Many on disability

More police officers in Oakland retired on disability than in other major cities in the Bay Area.

In 2013 and 2014, more than half of the 54 Oakland officers who retired received disability pensions, a higher rate than San Francisco and Richmond, police data show.

Oakland also has a higher percentage of former officers collecting disability pensions than many other cities in California, state data show.

More than half of the 840 retired Oakland police officers collect a disability pension, according to state data from 2012. In Sacramento, just a quarter of retirees collect a disability pension and in Long Beach, 34 percent do. In Richmond, 48 percent of the 422 retired officers collect disability.

But the high rate of disability retirements in Oakland makes sense, Boyd said, because police officers in Oakland are more likely to be injured than their colleagues in quieter departments.

"Oakland officers do engage in very physical, very demanding work every day," Boyd said. "It is important to look at the level of intensity and demand in those other cities."

City investigators will pay particular attention to cases where another law enforcement agency looking to hire a retiree has contacted the Police Department for a background investigation, something the FBI would have done when they hired McFarlane in 2008.

Checking the records

"If another agency has contacted (police) for a sworn position for a medically retired officer, we will look into whether the person was hired, compare the job requirements at (the Police Department) with the job requirements for the new position and look at the restrictions that required a medical retirement," Boyd said.

The results of the investigation will be presented to the City Council.

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